Had this been a motivating factor, then the colonists would not have erected a federal government far more tolerant of the Catholic faith than the mother country's. After independence, Catholics had more religious freedom in Protestant Georgia than in Catholic Quebec.
And why would the colonists have made common cause with Catholic France against Protestant England?
Or included Maryland in their alliance?
John Adams' personal moral flaws were not the basis for the independence movement.
Read Higgin’s Response at the Link.
“The notion that the movement for American independence was attributable to anti-Catholic bigotry is laughable.”
WA, do you ever, in a big-picture sense, have a bit of trouble reconciling Catholicism and Democracy - or rather, a Republic?
It would seem to me that they are not entirely compatible.
Traditional Catholicism seems most compatible with a Monarchy.
I believe the Catholics in Maryland were greatly outnumbered by the Protestants at the time of the Revolution (in fact, Protestants had always been a majority there). Maryland had 320,000 people in 1790, about 8% of the total US population of 3.9 million. The Catholic population was something like 1% in the US overall, and not all of them lived in Maryland—even if they had, they’d have been only 1 in 8 of the population there.
“Or included Maryland in their alliance?”
Maryland was governed by rancid Protestants by the time of the revolution, having replaced the Catholic Acts of [Religious] Toleration with severe anti-Catholic laws.
sitetest
One point I would like to remind all about: most (but not all, to be sure) of the colonial settlers of this country came not only to escape religious persecution (the Puritans and Quakers, for example) but to escape the potential for more Reformation and counter-Reformation (remember that blood really DID run in the streets in Europe). To do that, the Protestants tried to limit Catholic immigration to the colonies (other than Maryland, of course). For example, Dutch Reformed Niew Amsterdam allowed Jews to enter (1654) before Catholics.
However, the first Catholic mayor of (now) New York served in 1671 (the Brits took over in 1664 but the Dutch were still dominant).
One of the reasons that the Carroll family (who were probably more responsible than anybody else for the support we received from the French during our Revolution) has never gotten much attention in the history books is simply that they were Catholics. Much of US history has been written from an aggressively anti-Catholic position, and continues to be so to this day, even now that the Protestants have lost their power to the Marxists.
I agree and disagree with your comments. Let me explain.
The history of the Catholic Church going back from the 1700s was one of an extreme authoritarian nature. It wielded a lot of power and to oppose it was to basicly put your life in jeopardy.
Moving forward the Church of England took on the same authoritarian nature after recognizing that problem in the Catholic Church, and having been formed by people who broke away from Catholocism for that very reason.
Many of the people who came to the colonies wanted religious freedom. They were sick in tired of the draconian restrictions of the Church of England and by extension the Catholic Church of the previous centuries.
I would say the Church of England was more of a driving force behind many of the colonists’ decision to move to New England, but I do think a ‘back of the mind’ reference to Catholocism was very much in there somewhere.
Anti-catholicism was part of MA in colonial times. In 1647, the commonwealth banned Jesuits or other priests from being in the colony. In 1688, Ann Glover was executed not because she was a witch, but because she was Catholic. In 1750, chief justice of MA Paul Dudley endowed four annual lectures at Harvard; he mandated that be involved in “the detecting and convicting and exposing the idolatry of the Romish church, their tyranny, usurpations, damnable heresies, fatal errors, abominable superstitions, and other crying wickedness in their high places”
Until the 19th century graduates of the College of the Holy Cross in MA were actually conferred degrees by Georgetown, since the Congregationalists would not charter a Catholic (and Jesuit) college. What’s more, MA banned the celebration of Christmas as popery.
Catholicism was banned in Maryland 1688. John Jay called for a loyalty oath for public officers to abjure foreign ecclesiasticl leadership.
I think that Catholicism fared worse in colonies/states which were influenced by Puritans.
I like history stories, and I really miss Rome. I find the John Adams series very fascinating.
I saw a show on Protestantism this weekend (I think it was on History Channel) that concluded the American Revolution was one result of the Protestant Reformation.
Your summary at #7 was fine until you wrote your last sentence.
Rather than a “moral flaw” any aversion to
Roman Catholicism that Adams or hsi New Englander peers held was simply senible historical prejudice as colonial englishmen.
The Roman Catholic church had been very much a part of historical international conflict for the previous two centuries. In an age where all nations of the old world had “established” state churches in control of religious life to one degree or another, many simply watched the influence of the most centralized of the denominations with a jaundiced eye.
A senible approach to political realities rather than a “moral flaw” from our modern perspective.